


The After

by twinyards



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Angst, M/M, newtmas - Freeform, rifp me for even writing this i highkey hate myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 07:20:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13608396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinyards/pseuds/twinyards
Summary: You could categorize your life into two segments.There was The Before. Where everything was in splintering color, every taste vibrant on your tongue, every breathe so cold and fresh and real. Where everything felt right, where even when you were struggling for breath, you still knew your world was spinning on the right axis and there was fight left in you. Where you didn’t realize you were going to be irreparably changed.And then something would happen. Something to shift your world into twisted, warped shades of gray, to make every taste like ash on your tongue, every breathe heavy and dank with wrongness. Something to change your whole view of the world, your whole essence of self.And then there was The After.





	The After

**Author's Note:**

> This is honestly one of the hardest things I've ever written... Actual tears flowed when I wrote this. I dip one toe into the Maze Runner fandom after YEARS and tumble headfirst into an angst foxhole, so I apologize in advance.

You could categorize your life into two segments.

There was The Before. Where everything was in splintering color, every taste vibrant on your tongue, every breathe so cold and fresh and real. Where everything felt right, where even when you were struggling for breath, you still knew your world was spinning on the right axis and there was fight left in you. Where you didn’t realize you were going to be irreparably changed. 

And then something would happen. Something to shift your world into twisted, warped shades of gray, to make every taste like ash on your tongue, every breathe heavy and dank with wrongness. Something to change your whole view of the world, your whole essence of self.

And then there was The After.

Thomas had never thought his life could be worse than what WICKED had turned it into. His past, though he only vaguely remembered it, haunted him at every turn. The Maze had been the worst and best decision of his life. He had destroyed so much with WICKED, in their endless quest for a cure that might very well never exist. He had done the unthinkable to the people that had become his very best friends, his  _ family _ .

But as much as he hated himself for the pain he’d caused them, for the lives lost, Thomas had found he didn’t regret The Maze. At least not after he’d been placed into it. Sometimes he ached to turn back time, to find a way to fix Gally and save Chuck. To save Alby and all the others. Wishful thinking had always been his fatal flaw, however, and Thomas knew there was no saving those who were already lost.

So he focused on what he had. Teresa, despite her treachery. Brenda, who’d become something of a staple in their group. Minho, his best friend who’d never hesitated to help Thomas shoulder all the burdens he could bear. And  _ Newt _ … Well, Thomas simply couldn’t fathom his life without Newt in it. 

It was funny, if Thomas thought about it, how his entire world had shifted into focus the moment Newt had looked at him from outside The Box. As if Thomas knew he would find solace in the older boy. And from that moment onward, he had.

Newt had been a constant in every way. He’d been the cooling salve to Thomas’ hot temper, the strong arms that held him up through grief, the soft hand on his shoulder when Thomas needed a push to lead them all further. 

That tattoo on the back of Newt’s neck was so much more real than Newt even knew.  _ The Glue _ . Yes, of course Newt held them all together. But it was more than that. Newt held  _ Thomas  _ together. Thomas was a kaleidoscope of sharp edges, a pile of shattered glass that most people feared to touch. Newt was not most people. Newt had taken one look at Thomas and sat down for the long haul, to turn Thomas into a mosaic of strength and will. 

From the very first  _ Tommy _ , Newt had been Thomas’ driving force. 

There was an unspoken connection, a rightness with Newt, that Thomas felt with no one else.

It was not like with Teresa, where the pull of redacted memories and shared voices in each other’s heads brought them together. Thomas thought it was probably true that he’d loved Teresa once. Sometimes he was still blinded by his bodies memory of her, by what he thought he should feel. There was a loyalty there, a promise to be with each other until the end, but whatever it was that tied him to Teresa, it wasn’t love anymore. Not the kind he imagined they’d had. 

It was not like with Brenda. Brenda was fire and brimstone and bravery made flesh, and Thomas admired her endlessly for it. Kissing her hadn’t felt wrong, but it hadn’t felt right either. 

You couldn’t kiss someone, and mean it,  while you were thinking about someone else.

And that someone else was a truth Thomas barely let himself drag out into the light. There were some things that you wanted so badly, that the very thought of being denied them sent your whole soul into the eye of a hurricane. He was ravaged in every possible way by a desire he felt sure would take him apart from the inside out.

What was worse, to love someone and never know if they loved you back? Or to tell someone you loved them, and to hear that they’d never looked at you that same way? Like you were sunlight after years underground?

That was the horrible thing about love, it was so often unrequited. Thomas would know. You could give your mind, body, and soul irrevocably to one person, but they did not have to love you back. 

And that terrified him. Because Thomas could trace himself back through his scattered, splotchy memory, through the moments that had broken him and the moments that had reshaped him, and the moments that had polished him until he shown. And Newt was there for all of them.

If he said the words, if he brought his feelings to light, would Thomas break or shine?

Rejection felt like it might be the scariest thing in the world. Scarier than The Maze. Scarier than whatever WICKED would put them through next. Scarier than the Flare. The risk was too much to bear. So Thomas had buried the truth, under the pain of his losses and the fight to survive, and trudged forward as if his feet would never stop moving. As if he didn’t know fear. 

His resolve had worked for awhile. It had pushed him into action. They’d escaped WICKED, or were as free as Thomas thought they might ever be. The Scorch was a  terrifying place, but Thomas felt disconnected from the terror he was supposed to feel. It was hard to balk at the insanity of their world when he had Newt at his side and Minho and Brenda at his back. 

Things felt  _ right _ . They were doing what they were supposed to do and they were going to make it and they were going to get the chance to be kids again. 

Thomas should have known it was too good to be true. He should have known that stupid, creeping sense of hope and believing in the best would destroy him in the end. That naive hope hadn’t saved Chuck. It hadn’t stopped Tesera from betraying him. It hadn’t taken down WICKED. It had only made Thomas blind to the inevitable.

Finding out Newt was sick with the Flare was like waking up in a box and realizing you’d been buried alive. There was nothing he could do, no way he could dig himself out of a confinement with no door. He could only struggle to breathe, and wait for a rescue that would likely never come.

And there was that stupid hope again. Ruining him when he didn’t even know it. 

Even after Newt was gone, when he’d left to be with the other Cranks, some part of Thomas had clung to that fragile, disgusting sense of hope. No. It was not the end. They had a story that was still unwritten. An open book with a beginning and a middle, and blank pages for Thomas to scrawl the ending on.

Not knowing felt like it might be the scariest thing in the world. He would save Newt. He would find a way; find a cure. Because Thomas was realizing he might not be able to bear the weight of all the words he’d never said. 

Seeing Newt from inside the transport had felt like a gift. It had felt like an apology from whatever asshole directed the universe; a grain of something good to push him to keep fighting. It had felt like a sign that his hopes weren’t for nothing. 

Seeing Newt wasn’t a coincidence. Thomas couldn’t accept that.

But when he’d called Newts name, when he’d heard the insane mask over the  _ I bloody remember you, Tommy _ , Thomas had lost feeling in his body. He was on autopilot as Newt flung himself at him, as Thomas’ hand reach for a gun he couldn’t and wouldn’t use.

_ “Kill me or I’ll kill you!” _

Fine.  _ Good _ . Thomas didn’t want to live in a world without Newt in it. He didn’t want to take another step without telling Newt that he would die a thousand times over if it would give Newt just a few moments of peace without the virus wreaking havoc on his brain and is body and everything that made him the boy Thomas loved.

They could die together. That was fine with Thomas. 

It seemed a fitting sort of end. For Thomas’ life to end where it started - looking up at Newt and waiting for whatever was going to happen next. 

After all, how did you go on living when the brightest piece of you stopped shining and went dark forever?

Some part of him registered that he was choking out words. Telling Newt he wouldn’t kill him. He couldn’t. And it was only making Newt angrier. Newt’s fingernails were digging into Thomas skin, and the power of that touch might have been the only thing keeping Thomas halfway grounded in this moment instead of floating away on his grief.

Thomas thought maybe he’d let Newt kill him. Maybe it would be better. He would see Chuck again. And Alby. And maybe in the afterlife he wouldn’t be afraid to say the three little words that hovered in his chest with every pound of his heartbeat, so hard and loud it was the sound of the doors closing in The Glade and the slap of his feet on the concrete as he fled the Grievers.

But there would be no Minho in the afterlife. No Brenda or Teresa. No chance to right the wrongs that he’d done. Thomas’ suffering would be over, and maybe he’d get his greatest wish, but he would have fixed nothing.

And he didn’t deserve that escape. Thomas had to fix what he’d done. He had to find a good life for the people that were left. He had to give them a chance to really live for the first time, and not just survive. 

Thomas didn’t deserve the escape that death brought.

But Newt did.

He deserved as much peace as Thomas could give him.

_ “Do it before I become one of  _ them _.” _

And now Thomas knew the scariest feeling in the world. It was not rejection. It was not the unknown. It was looking at the one thing that made you want to live and realizing it was being taken from you, and that you could do absolutely nothing about it.

It was feeling your memory of how to smile slowly slip, and realizing your head and heart had started spiraling downward so quickly that your body couldn’t catch up fast enough to do something about it.

He was a symphony of regret - all his poor choices and wrong doings had boiled down to this moment: the wild look in Newt’s eyes that softened as he held onto the fragile tendrils of his sanity with an iron grip, and demanded the one thing of Thomas that would take all those glass pieces Newt had taken so long to piece together and shatter them all over again. 

_ “KILL ME!” _

You could categorize your life into two segments.

_ “Please Tommy, please.” _

There was The Before. Where everything was in splintering color, every taste vibrant on your tongue, every breathe so cold and fresh and real. Where everything felt right, where even when you were struggling for breath, you still knew your world was spinning on the right axis and there was fight left in you. Where you didn’t realize you were going to be irreparably changed. 

_ Thomas pulled the trigger. _

And then something would happen. Something to shift your world into twisted, warped shades of gray, to make every taste like ash on your tongue, every breathe heavy and dank with wrongness. Something to change your whole view of the world, your whole essence of self.

_ Newt died. _

And then there was The After.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you liked this please leave comments and kudos for encouragement!  
> And if you have any requests for future fic ideas, feel free to message me on tumblr @beckcobalt and make a request!  
> Thank you all so much for reading.


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